Everyday Cori By Corine Ingrassia

Look, Feel and Live Your Most Well-Lived Life

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The Unauthorized Secrets of Morning People– Exposed!

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You know the opening line in that 80’s song, Manic Monday?

“6:00 already. I was just in the middle of a dream…”

Story. Of. My. Life, you guys.

And well, 6am (no matter what side of daylight savings time we are on) always seems just a few shades too bright for my liking.

Because, confession: I am not a morning person.

I LOVE my beauty rest, my fluffy pillow, crisp sheets, cool breeze blowing from the ceiling fan, melting into my pillow top mattress.

No matter when I go to bed, I can never get enough of any of these things.

In a twist of fate, I somehow married a morning person.

Even more ironically, I birthed not one, not two but T H R E E, adorable–after I’ve had my coffee– miniature morning people.

I know. Bizarre. Between you and I, I’m not fully convinced they weren’t switched at birth.

But me? If given the opportunity I would hit that snooze button until noon.

Which as comedian Demitri Martin points out … is kinda, well… dumb.

In his stand up routine he says:

Snooze Button_ Demetri Martin_ Quote

And? He’s 100% right!

Why do we do it to ourselves?

And, if by nature you love your sleep, can you become a morning person?

Well, I have good news my fellow sleep lovers. There is hope. We can turn our morning grizzly ways around!

I’ve been silently sleuthing the secrets of my morning-people and have uncovered a few easy ways we can fake-it-til-we-make-it.

The Unauthorized Secrets of Morning People– Exposed!

Corine Ingrassia 2017

Prepare The Night Before

Growing up I had a friend who consistently laid out her outfits the night before– including accessories and any packed bags she might need– etc., etc.

She did this when we were in middle school and continued into adulthood– even after kids– every. single. night. like clockwork.

You know what James does every night? THE SAME EXACT THING. (Yep. He married me.)

Call it cray. Call it OCD. Call it what you will–

BUT… it’s effective!

I can’t tell you how many mornings I’ve laid in bed mentally filing through my wardrobe trying to piece together outfits, dreading leaving my comfy bed just to possibly find that one of my mentally chosen items are in the wash (cause isn’t that the worst?)

Laying out everything the night before gives you a stress-free morning, and waking up is a tiny bit more pleasurable when less stress is involved.

No iPhone/iPad Checking

It is SO tempting to just do a quick email or Facebook scan in the morning– but don’t do it my friends! We both know checking your phone in the morning is like getting lost down the rabbit hole and only leads to procrastination.

None of my morning people scroll their devices (granted 1/2 of them don’t have personal devices, but the connection to my point remains). Don’t do it. Procrastination never make mornings fun.

Brush Your Teeth

I’m talking as soon as your feet hit the ground, head to the bathroom and brush your teeth.

This is actually my own personal secret, as I am usually chasing after my littlest morning people to brush their teeth.

Getting rid of that kick’n morning breath is probably the #1 thing that wakes me up in the morning. Sure, you may end up brushing them again after your morning coffee but I truly cannot feel remotely awake if I do not have fresh breath.

Drink A Cup… of WATER

I know, I know. Not our first beverage of choice.

And I would never deny you your caffeine!

We’re friends. Friends don’t let friends function without caffeine.

BUT, I would suggest you drink a cup of water before you reach for that coffee mug.

We tend to be dehydrated after a night’s rest, and dehydration = grogginess.

Put On Those Workout Clothes… And No, I’m Not Talking Yoga Pants.

It feels mind boggling, I am even suggesting this considering visions of breaking a sweat does not even remotely make me want to leave Club B.E.D.  But, morning people actually do this –and dammit– just like their OCD outfit prepping– it works!

But there is a reason I listed this as putting on work out clothes and not “exercise”, lean in.

Sometimes, I will get dressed for the gym in the morning – head to toe– sneakers and all… and not actually go to the gym for hours.

Of course not everyone’s morning looks like mine and it totally sounds insane. I know, but hear me out.

Putting on work out clothes can really set the tone– and sorry, your comfiest worn out yoga pants do not apply here. I find I instantly want to get moving– even if my class at the gym isn’t for another few hours. If I have my work out gear on… I am getting ish done!

Grab Your Java After 9am! 

Gahh! I know.

I am finally speaking our sleepy language, and I am telling you to hold off a little.

Trust that no one loves their coffee more than I do but waiting to get your caffeine fix until after 9am has been SCIENTIFICALLY proven to be more effective in perking you up!

Don’t believe me? Ask my hubby who waits til he gets to the office to have his first cup… or check out the research for yourself!

So next time your alarm goes off and you reach for the snooze button, try one of these tricks to perk up and fake your morning-person-ness and be sure to report back and let me know how it goes!!

xo Cori

unnamed-5

Originally shared 2/28/2015 2 in partnership with Folgers.

Shop Today, Wear Tonight: 9 Places To Snag The Perfect Outfit Online + Pick It Up Same Day!

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When you have an important or special day coming up, it is always of course #goals to have that perfect outfit planned out days (or weeks!) ahead of time– but let’s face it– sometimes, that’s just not the way life works. Our days can get crazy, we’re sometimes just focused on surviving the 24 crazy busy hours in front of us and sometimes? Plans are just plain old last minute!

I recently found myself struggling with this dilemma when I had a photo shoot that required solid, brightly colored clothing.

Do you know what’s kind of hard to find in New Jersey in the middle of January? Solid brightly colored clothing.

And do you know what I’m apparently not a big fan of? … Solid, brightly colored clothing.

It’s actually not something I ever noticed about myself until I was on the hunt– BUT– as they say, when there is a will there’s a way!

I could have blindly headed to the mall and shopped around– but when juggling a pre-schooler,  that wasn’t ideal (although, Avery has become an excellent shopping buddy– always willing to offer up his honest, uncensored opinion when I’m trying on clothes–ha!).

Luckily there are quite a few stores that allow you to shop from their website and pick up at your local store the same day. In case you ever find yourself in a pinch similar to mine, below is a list retailers that allow you to shop site-to-store!

It’s a Godsend, really!

Shop Today. Wear Tonight.

9 Retail stores to snag an outfit online + pick up in-store

 

The Best Disney Cruise Tips, Secrets And Hacks Every Cruiser Needs To Know

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These Disney Cruise tips are things I wish I had known on my first cruise and I’ve updated them for 2019-2020 cruisers! They elevate the cruise from amazing to unforgettable. So read on and don’t forget to pin this post so you can find it later when you plan your Disney cruise!

I LOVE Disney Cruises!

There is nothing like a Disney Cruise and I am sooo excited to say we are planning our THIRD (and this time with friends! Cannot wait!)

I’ve written about our experience onboard the Fantasy and Dream here on the blog and have posted a few (ok– a lot) of our Disney Cruise pictures on Instagram too, but one thing I’ve yet to do, but have been meaning to for quite sometimes is share the Disney Cruise tips and secrets that we found to be total game changers– because as with any Disney Vacation, a little insight and planning can go a long way!

So now being a two-time Disney Cruise Line veteran, I finally sat down and put it all in one post!

Enjoy!

Disney Cruise Tips And Secrets

Here are all my tips and hacks in one post. Follow all of them and you’ll have a seriously magical experience!

Disney Cruise Pictures

1. Join Your Sailing’s Facebook Group

Join a Disney Cruise Facebook Group

I have no idea if this even existed for our first sailing but we found it for our second and it was great to be able to connect with other families sailing and post questions to see what others were planning for excursions, etc.

These groups typically also organize things like wine tastings, meet-ups and a “Fish Extender” program– which is a lot like a Secret Santa where you leave each other small inexpensive Disney themed gifts. We did not participate in the Fish Extenderprogram but I know people who have and said their kids had a lot of fun finding surprise gifts waiting for them at their cabin door.

Disney Cruise Fish Extender Program

The Facebook groups are not an official Disney group and you can be as active or inactive as you want, but it is definitely a great resource to keep on top of all the planning and prep. You can find the group usually by searching something like “Disney Cruise NY-San Juan Magic November 2016”

2. Personalize Your Cabin Door

Disney Cruise Personalized Door

Get personalized cabin door magnets like these here->  Disney Cruise Mickey Door Magnets 

This is something we totally had no idea about the first time around. Die-hard Disney fans and cruisers go all out with their magnetic cabin doors. It’s a lot of fun to see how everyone personalizes them with magnets showing off their past cruises and favorite Disney Characters. People really get creative!

Disney Cruise family decorated door

Disney Cruise Door Magnets

Decorating the cabin door also goes hand in hand with those fish extenders. You can make your own cabin door fish extender or purchase them along with magnets one on Etsy!

3. Pre-order Pins To Trade In Bulk

A girl trading pins with a Disney Cruise line cast member

From a young age, our kids have been big on pin-trading with cast members and other kids when we go on Disney vacations. It gives them something to always be on the look out for and in some cases can keep them excited when waiting on lines for characters, etc.  but buying pins can get costly in Disney stores (usually around $12.99 and up for a small set of 3?).

We were given the tip of purchasing bags of them for $25 on Amazon and Ebay from a fellow cruiser on our first sailing and it totally paid off! We purchased 50 for a fraction of the store cost and split them up between all of the kids we were sailing with.

bulk Disney pins

Available on Amazon 

The other plus side to ordering in bulk is a lot of the time you get pins you don’t mind trading them. When you purchase them you usually buy ones your kids really love and don’t want to part with. Remember: The fun of it is hunting down and finding ones that wow-them.

We were surprised at how into it the older kids (11/12 years old) got into it– you just never know what will be a hit or miss with middle schoolers– but they had a lot of fun with it!

Also- when you board everyone is given a lanyard to hold your room key, we had our kids use this lanyard to hold their pins instead of wearing two– so no need to purchase a special one for pins!

4. Register For Kids Clubs  & Special Character Meet And Greets Before Your Sailing

Disney Cruise Kid's Club Andy's Room

You can register your kids for the kids club at any time during your cruise, but it is definitely easier to get it out of the way and do it ahead of time online vs. having to wait and registering them at the Kids Club where other people are dropping off and picking up.

When you register online, you are able to get your kids Mickey bands along with your key to world cards right at embarkation! Easy peasy!

Little girl meeting Aladdin on Disney Cruise

There may be special character meet and greets and other limited guest happenings you need to register for in advance, so be sure to stay on top of that.

For our sailing, we had a princess meet and greet and a Frozen meet and greet that we signed up for. There are TONS of meet and greets you don’t need to sign up for and lines aren’t crazy but this just makes it a little easier.

Our last sailing was also the first Merrytime Christmas cruise, so they built GI-NORMOUS gingerbread house in the main lobby area and there were tickets you could have signed up for to help decorate it– which we regrettably missed!

5. Prep Your Carry On Bag With Essentials

Embarking is pretty seamless but it can take a little while for all of your bags to arrive on day one. So it is always a good idea to be prepared with essentials (like a change of clothes, sunscreen, flip-flops) that you may need in the first few hours on board.

6. Download The Navigator App

Disney Cruise Navigator App With Mom

The Navigator app is pretty amazing.

This Disney Cruise app will give you a run down of all the day’s activities and also allow you to keep in contact with friends and family on the ship.

When you board or while you are waiting to board, download the app and set it up with all of the people in your group so that you can continue to communicate via “text” on the ship while you don’t have cell phone service. There are fun Disney emojis with the Navigator app, which I added ahead of everyone’s name when putting them into my contacts.

Texting via the app was SO much easier that trying to use the room’s wave phones– which you have to use the old school AAABBBCC type texting from years ago– which felt completely foreign to us on our first cruise. You would cry laughing if you saw our lame attempts to text via the wave phone because neither of us could remember how to space words. So our texts looked like “WeAreByThePoolMeetUsAt12”. It’s funny how quickly things like that, that use to come so easy are quickly forgotten.  The wave phone is still needed for the kids club and day care to communicate with parents but thankfully, you don’t need to use it for texting!

7. Pillowcase or Picture frame For Character Signatures

Disney Character Signatures on a pillow case

Available via Teeny Tiny Fashions on Etsy

If you bring a blank pillowcase, autograph book or picture frame with mat and leave it on your bed with a note, your stateroom host will be sure all the Characters on board sign it and they will deliver it back to you will all signatures.

8. Maximize Your MBs With This Disney Cruise WiFi Hack

Overall, I do not recommend wifi on board– like at all. I had to purchase a package this time around and I was floored by how quickly it was all used up when I only sent and received 10-15 texts!

Disney Cruise WiFi

That being said IF YOU REALLY NEED IT, I do have a bit of a Wifi hack to share. Here is what you need to do to make those MBs last.

Before your purchase on your phone stop by the Wifi desk near guest services and ask them for a copy of instructions on how/what apps and settings to change to help maximize your data.

For instance, if you don’t change your settings every time you turn on wifi your phone may automatically try to download all of your emails. If you are like me with an inbox of hundreds of unread emails, this is a nightmare and will gobble up that data in no time without you even knowing it.

9. Dine Earlier With Little Ones

Disney Cruise dining with children

If your children are small, especially if they are toddlers, I recommend the earlier seating for dinner.

That being said, if your child is in one of the kids’ clubs at dinner time, it’s helpful to know that you can ask your waiter can send food to “It’s A Small World” and the clubs also serve meals at certain times.  Just be sure to ask when those times are and if you need to have your waiter send food to the nursery, ask them before you sit down.

10. Castmember Tipping On Your Disney Cruise

Little girl blowing a kiss on a Disney cruise
Tips are automatically added to your final bill for four people: Your 3 dinner servers and your stateroom host. Towards the end of your cruise, they will leave envelopes on your bed for these 4 tips. You can choose to just put in a small note and prepaid voucher or add cash– though additional cash is not necessary.

Cast members who work in the Oceaneer Club and It’s A Small world are not included in prepaid tips and I’ve heard they are supposed to politely decline any tips offered. That being said, we tipped the sitters in “It’s a Small World” and they didn’t turn it down– I was glad they didn’t. I was extremely impressed by the sitters and they literally saved our vacation because Avery (who just turned 3 days before the sailing) was overwhelmed by The Oceaneers Club.  $9/hr and worth every.single.penny.

11. Take Advantage Of The Laundry Facilities

Disney cruise laundry

Now I know this is kind of a personal preference, but with a family of five being able to go home with suitcases of clean laundry is kind of the best feeling in the world.  There are washers and dryers onboard that I highly recommend taking advantage of at least 2 days before your final day. If you wait til the before you leave, you will no doubt run into an issue finding a free machine.

Game Changing Tips and Hacks for Your Disney Cruise

More Travel Tips

Now that you know everything you need to know about how to make your Disney cruise EPIC, here are some more travel tips for more vacation fun!

How To Slay The Holidays and End Holiday Shopping Procrastination!

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This post was written in partnership with The Mills At Jersey Gardens

Holiday shopping procrastination is a vicious cycle, am I right?

We start out with the best of intentions. Then our calendars and to-do lists fill up, social events, cookie exchanges…  we miss that flash one flash sale… and thennnn the procrastinating begins and we begin to avoid our shopping list– or at least certain items… like. the. plague. 

I’ve been guilty of this more times than I like to admit, but there is a silver lining in everything, right? And being a recovering holiday shopping procrastinator has given me some insight into some simple and effective ways to AVOID holiday shopping procrastinating.

I recently hosted a blogger breakfast at my favorite indoor outlet mall, The Mills At Jersey Gardens for a little holiday fun with the kids (They have THE BEST Santa set up!) and during the event I spoke with attendees about how we can really slay our holiday shopping list this year, like a pro!

(credit: the always fabulous Erika Batista)

HOW TO END HOLIDAY SHOPPING PROCRASTINATION

Ask for suggestions early so there’s no guessing

When it comes to holiday shopping, there is nothing more overwhelming than having no idea what to get for someone on our lists– and when we feel overwhelmed we tend to procrastinate. So send out a quick text to those on your list and ask them for a few hints or suggestions before you head out to get your shop on!

Make a list and check it twice

Once you have your suggestions, make a master list and be sure to update it as you purchase your gifts. It is a rewarding feeling to cross things off your to do list, and it will help keep you on task and avoid impulse purchases that can cause us to spend extra money!

Keep your list in a place you see will see it every day

Keep your master list in a common area in your house that you are going to see everyday– like the refrigerator! This will serve as a daily reminder and keep you on track for getting your shopping done!

Map Out Your Shopping

One of the reasons I love The Mills at Jersey Gardens is that I can pretty much find something for everyone under one roof without compromising quality or feeling like I’m “settling” (which always ultimately makes us end up settling on a gift, right?). The less time spent in the car, the quicker we can get our shopping done.

The Mills At Jersey Gardens has department stores like Century21, Saks Off 5th and Neiman Marcus Last Call to individual designer outlets– you can easily find a gift at a great price for everyone from your family to teachers.

During the our blogger breakfast, we challenged attendee to find a great gift under $25 for a ‘White Elephant’ gift exchange… and you guys, the gifts that were unwrapped were incredible; from a Kate Spade wallet to Alex & Ani Scarf to a 3 piece, hand picked travel themed gift from Burlington!

Point being, if you can power shop outlets (especially indoors during the winter!) –––doooo it.

Set Yourself Goals And Reminders

Am I the only one who uses their phone to cover up for their early on-set dementia? I use Siri to remind me of EV.ER.Y. THAAANG– using Siri as my personal shopping assistant during the holidays just came naturally and it has changed the game.

 “Hey Siri, remind me when I leave the house tomorrow to pick up a teacher gifts at Sephora!”

Another game changer?

Breaking up your list into smaller more manageable goals! 

For example: buying all of your kids gifts by the first weekend in December (before moving on to anything else– FOCUS is key here!) When you’ve completed this small goal it will make your list feel more manageable and make you feel more accomplished and pumped to tackle the next small goal.

From Sick Day To Slay: Makeup For When You’re Feeling Under The Weather

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Happy cold and flu season– NOT!

Temps are up, temps are down and germs are flying all over the place– and this week I fell victim to a miserable cold that left my skin looking dull, pale, blotchy and dry! THE WORST. So I thought this would be the perfect time to share some sick day makeup tips that I use to make myself look a little more alive, when I’m feeling under the weather.

While I don’t believe in going crazy with makeup at the peak of sickness (we all deserve a makeup free day just resting and watching Netflix– unless you have kids of course, then you’ll likely be watching Toy Story or Moana–HA) – I DO believe in giving our skin a little help when we finally start to feel a little better.

SEE FULL VIDEO HERE

No-Fail Potty Training Tips

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This week marks Avery’s 3rd birthday and the completion of his potty training!

Of all three of our kids Avery is has trained the youngest and quickest– partially because we had a goal to have him trained for our Disney Cruise later this month.

After training 3 kids with 3 totally different personalities, there have definitely been things that didn’t work and others that worked with all three. So today I’m teaming up with Pampers Easy Ups to tell you a little bit about our potty training experience and pass on some tips that have worked for me as a 3 time potty training veteran!

*Sponsored by Pampers

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